The History of Women in Computing

On this day, 63 years ago, the world was introduced to the first digital, electronic computer. ENIAC - which stands for Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer - was the world’s first operational, general-purpose, digital computer, and it was developed at the Moore School of Electrical Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania. The ENIAC and the invention of the computer is considered one of the most influential and pervasive developments after World War II.

Alas women now only represent a small fraction of computer science graduates and are not fully representd in the world of information technology and computing. This is one reason I enthusiastically agreed to co-found and serve as founding CEO of NCWIT, which has the overarching goal of achieving parity in the professional information technology (IT) workforce.

Why is this issue important? Innovation thrives with a diversity of ideas and input. As IT becomes pervasive in our lives, we need women’s full participation in the the creation of the technology upon which our society increasingly depends. Further, U.S. Department of Labor projections forecast that our economy will add 1 million professional IT jobs by 2016. Women’s lack of participation results in ideas not realized, products not implemented and jobs going unfilled.

NCWIT is working on interventions across the entire educational and career pipeline, including new ideas in curriculum, outreach, recruiting and retention. We are also studying women’s participation in key innovation metrics such as IT patenting, open source and entrepreneurship.